


Three Brothers I - Inean/Naethir Dawncaller

by Hedonick



Series: Battle for Azeroth: Biographies [3]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Family Drama, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Character Death, Suicide, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27269095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedonick/pseuds/Hedonick
Summary: Since he was a little kid, Inean Dawncaller dreamt of becoming a war hero like his father. When he joins the Argent Crusade as a Paladin, he believes his time to shine has come. However, during the invasion of the Burning Legion on the Broken Isles and after the violent death of his father at demon hands, he starts to lose faith in the light... and turns towards darker powers, which ultimately lead to his demise. Death isn't always the end on Azeroth, though... but it always brings change.
Series: Battle for Azeroth: Biographies [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972672
Kudos: 1





	Three Brothers I - Inean/Naethir Dawncaller

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, dear reader!  
> I'm pleased to introduce you to my main character! He has been through a lot of changes... and I'm not only talking about the ones you can read about below.  
> At one point in time or another, my dear death knight has been a draenei, then a night elf, then a human and then a draenei again... I was never quite happy with him. By now I realized, that the main problem was never his race, but a lack of identity in general. I strongly believe to have solved this problem with the following story.  
> Enjoy!

Erezia Dawncaller bore her first child at the proud age of 2953 years merely with the help of a midwife at the high elf family property in Fairbreeze Village, while her husband was still engaged in the Second War. Only a few weeks later, she had to flee with her newborn to the nearby capital Silvermoon when the Horde invaded Quel’Thalas. Kath’dril Dawncaller met his son Inean for the first time after his return to his homeland under the command of Alleria Windrunner and the repulsion of the Horde thanks to the support of the Alliance forces.

After these turbulent first months of his life – though he didn’t realize much of it – the next years of Inean’s childhood passed uneventful and palmy. The quaint forests around the swiftly restored Fairbreeze Village offered many adventures to a young high elf under the watchful eyes of his parents. An additional source of entertainment were the short trips to Sunsail Anchorage, where many ships and boats could be observed while they arrived at or departed from the small port. Early on, Inean developed an interest in warfare and fighting, innervated by the numerous stories he was told by the other villagers of the heroic deeds performed by his father in the Troll Wars long ago, but also in the First and Second War.

The next big event Inean witnessed at the age of seven was judged a miracle by many other quel’dorei. Not only had his relatively old mother a second successful pregnancy, she even bore healthy twins. With additionally having to look after his two younger brothers Orthorin and Saewron to support his mother, the following years proved diverting, increasingly so after Inean also started his apprenticeship at the age of twelve. Although Kath’dril was a battle priest spending much of the time in war healing, young Inean had seen his father often enough practicing swordplay and was rather fascinated by it, so he choose the education of a warrior for himself.

Already aged fourteen, Inean was just old enough to be involved in the defense of Quel’Thalas and especially Silvermoon City, when the Scourge marched on the Sunwell. However, while his mother – who had been evacuated overseas with the twins early on – was gravely worried about him, he himself was rather disappointed by the fact that he was only tasked with minor errands or menial work as far off from the actual fighting as possible.   
Considering the devastating course of the war, in the end it was nevertheless enormous luck – and skill on the side of Kath’dril – that Inean and his father both survived the whole invasion. 

The family reunion months later in the still largely destroyed capital was a grim one nonetheless and followed by six years heavily characterized by the aftermath of the Third War.   
While the three children – although they, too, felt its absence – got off lightly, their mother’s health suffered greatly from the consequences of the worry and stress undergone plus the magic withdrawals caused by the destruction of the Sunwell.   
Their father – slightly younger than Erezia – fared better, but lost his faith in the light, tormented by the missing progress in the fight against the remains of the Scourge and his wife’s worsening condition, which resulted in him joining the blood knights in an early period under the command of Lady Liadrin.  
Aged nineteen, eager to tread in the footsteps of his father, Inean came into a fierce conflict with Kath’dril, who firmly forbid his son to join the ranks of the new order of blood elven paladins. During the course of the subsequent year however, he comprehended that his father’s unusual harshness had been an act of kindness. Inean was then satisfied enough to finally join the paladins after the restoration of the Sunwell and the reorganization of the order, that now once more was working harmonically with the light instead of ruthlessly subjugating it.   
Accompanying this realignment of Inean’s career was a general improvement of the living conditions of the whole family. His father lost most of his bitterness developed in the recent years; the twins could continue their still only just started apprenticeships as rogues newly invigorated; and Erezia’s health improved distinctly.

One year later, Inean and his father both entered the newly founded Argent Crusade, that was about to play an important role during the fight against the Lich King in Northrend and later on contributed much to the success of the whole campaign. Following the Cataclysm, Inean and the order occupied themselves mainly in the Eastern Plaguelands, driving back the remains of the Scourge and healing the zone from its blighted state.

As particularly fateful for Inean’s life – by now aged twenty-six – proved the year of the invasion of the Burning Legion on the Broken Isles in Azeroth. He and his father, who had both become highly valued members of the Argent Crusade, followed Tirion Fordring into the Battle for the Broken Shore. As one of the earliest assault forces, they were completely overwhelmed by the – contrary to reports – immense demon army awaiting them.   
Fighting for his life as hard as never before, Inean still couldn’t stop his whole corps from being butchered by the fel-monsters. He, Kath’dril and other high-ranking members of the order as well as Tirion Fordring were taken prisoner and brought deeper into the stronghold swarmed by countless demons, where Jailers awaited them ready to pry important information out of them.   
By the time the Alliance and Horde reinforcements arrived, Inean had been severely tortured, after he’d already been forced to watch his father die under the merciless hands of their tormentors. Although he was then freed by champions of the Horde, their efforts were futile given the superior numbers of the demon forces. The last thing Inean caught before losing conscience was the shattering of Tirion Fordring’s Divine Shield at the hands of Gul’Dan, followed by the fall of the great leader of the Argent Crusade into a pit of deadly fel-magma.

Following his physical recovery, Inean was sent on a furlough and returned home to Silvermoon for the cremation of his father. Although to grieve with the rest of his family did help with the loss of his father and paragon, their company wasn’t enough to soften the returning nightmares that haunted Inean in his sleep. The experienced supremacy of the Burning Legion, his own helplessness and the failure of the power of the light against the fel-wielders reflected in his dreams brought him to the verge of despair regularly, a fact he hid mainly from his mother, who was already deeply hurt by the death of her husband, but also to protect his still just underage brothers. This went mostly well, only the – by seconds – younger twin Saewron took notice of his often exceedingly dark moods but wasn’t persistent enough to pressure him into talking. Instead, Inean sought another solution to restore his failing trust in the future: he remembered an old friend of the Dawncallers, who had been researching new – and by the authority considered dangerous – sources of power, which eventually lead to his and his followers exile from Silvermoon about five years ago.   
But if the light wasn’t strong enough to cope with the fel – and that seemed to be the main problem – maybe there were other powers that would succeed in its place. Being aware of the most likely lacking approval for his plans by at least his mother, Inean pretended to return to his duty with the Argent Crusade after merely a two weeks stay. In truth he followed the clues he had found in Silvermoon during the course of the last days regarding the latest whereabouts of said researcher – Magister Umbric.

Inean eventually found the exiles deep in the Ghostlands at Dawnstar Spire and was received warmly. Less promising were his findings though; the Magister’s and his followers’ research concerning the powers of the Void were still ongoing and hadn’t yet yielded the kind of success Umbric hoped for. Inean was kindly invited to consult the previous studies, but apart from this mostly left to his own reading. While searching through the numerous writings he came across several instructions for methods granting access to the powers of the Void, but the Magister swiftly and firmly extinguished his hopes by explaining that access in this case wasn’t the same as control and that uncontrolled void powers were indeed dangerous and not to be underestimated.   
Roughly ten days later, Inean left Dawnstar Spire gravely disappointed but also unwilling to join the research for an unknown term; his official furlough was about to end and he didn’t intend to abandon the fight against the Burning Legion for the Magister’s potentially utterly impossible project.

Back on the Broken Isles with the remaining troops of the Argent Crusade and fighting against the seemingly endless hordes of demons arriving in Azsuna, it didn’t take long until Inean’s morale started to wane anew. He would have probably been less shocked, if he was the only one struggling, since he was a relatively new paladin and still partially unfamiliar with their faith, but even the more veteran fighters of the light were regularly helpless against the ferocious powers of the demons.   
It wasn’t the light failing or abandoning them – it simply wasn’t strong enough; their efforts crumbled under the onslaught like Tirion’s Divine Shield had splintered under Gul’Dan’s touch. Inean’s growing despair soon outshone his sense of responsibility and he couldn’t resist the temptation any longer. Ignoring Magister Umbric’s warnings, he started experimenting with the knowledge he had gained in the Ghostlands.   
Eventually he was actually able to wield some Void magics and to use them against the demons – with surprising success. This accomplishment came at a high cost though: for one thing, his new fighting abilities promptly attracted the attention of the current cadre of the Argent Crusade, and lead – to Inean’s complete dismay – to his immediate exclusion from the order, and for another thing he started to hear the whispers of the Void.  
The first consequence was rather easily dealt with: despite his disappointment with the Argent Crusade, he understood their reasoning and thankfully there was another army present fighting for the same cause – the general army of the Horde, where more or less no restrictions existed, regarding the allowed sources of power used by their members, as long as they fought for the goals set by the Warchief. Inean briefly informed his family of this change of employer, but withheld its involuntary character.   
The second consequence though eventually became his demise: at first the whispers – taunting Inean with his lack of resistance against the decision of the order or falsely warning him about the bad intentions of new acquaintances – were easily ignored or merely made him appear distrustful, but the more time passed, the stronger the whispers grew. Inean himself wasn’t unaware of this and temporarily even stopped his usage of the void powers in the hope that the whispers would fall silent again, but it didn’t work. Seeking help elsewhere wasn’t an option either, since the only ones able to do so were probably the exiles in the Ghostlands, but since he’d explicitly disregarded Magister Umbric’s warning, he didn’t expect another warm welcome. Inean also noticed that – although he tried to fight it – the whispers had an increasing influence on him, leading him to sometimes see enemy demons in the allies fighting alongside him.   
In the end, utterly horrified and overwhelmed by this side effect of his newfound supposed miracle weapon against the Burning Legion, he reached the decision that he himself had become too big a danger and had to put an end to it, before the whispers persuaded him to seriously harm his allies. The next time an acute Legion assault had to be repelled, Inean fought without much regard for his own welfare and was – as planned – killed in the process, but not before he’d more or less taken out the whole assault forces with the powers of the Void by himself, leaving his family the small relief to have died a hero.

As it often happens in Azeroth, Inean’s death wasn’t his actual end though. His unprofessional antics with the powers of the Void left his soul unable to resurrect or to cross the veil between life and death: partly consumed by the Void, partly destroyed by the fel and partly simply unable to rest because of the sense of guilt regarding his failings, Inean’s soul was left as something between an echo and a ghost, doomed to eternal suffering and anguish.

One and a half-odd years later, just after the end of the Fourth War, the Lich King Bolvar Fordragon came across Inean’s soul in his search for candidates suited to become a new generation of death knights, since the Helm of Domination had shown him a vision containing strong references to a shortly arising need for more reliable allies able to contain the Scourge. Due to the damaged state of the soul, the Lich King wasn’t able to simply resurrect Inean as a death knight though and Bolvar discontentedly left the soul behind, but did not just forget it.   
Soon after this discovery, chance brought it about that the Lich King was visited by one of his most valuable champions, Deathlord Avadel. The death knight requested to be redeemed from her eternal existence, feeling completely burnt out after her already long life; first as normal dreanei that had belonged to those forced to flee their home Argus; and secondly as a member of the Death Knights of Acherus, who had been compelled by Lich King Arthas to fight the Scarlet Crusade and the Argent Dawn, who had gained their free will during the Battle for Light’s Hope Chapel and had later committed themselves as Knights of the Ebon Blade to the fights against Bolvar’s predecessor, Deathwing, Garrosh Hellscreem, the Iron Horde, the Burning Legion and the Horde during the just recently ended Fourth War.  
Her petition confronted Bolvar with a severe moral conflict: on the one hand, he couldn’t reject her plea, since with his accession to power he had promised the Knights of the Ebon Blade that they would keep their free will and would only serve him voluntarily – like all the future death knights; on the other hand he was unwilling to simply lose one of his best fighters at this point in time.   
After some efforts at persuasion on both sides, the Lich King and his Deathlord struck a deal: Avadel would be released from duty and her soul separated from her body, but parts of it would be used to restore the damaged, tormented soul of the young paladin Bolvar had come across on the Broken Isles, to raise him as a new death knight in her stead – if he accepted the offer.

“Rise, death knight, and tell me your name”, an icy cold, deep voice requested.  
He opened his eyes, taking a deep breath into his magically restored lungs and body. He lay on the hard floor with nothing but a cloudy dark sky far above and an icy wind blowing around him, though the cold felt strangely distant. Slowly he sat up, examining his pale skin that had an unfamiliar, faint blue tinge to it, while the strands of hair dangling in front of his face were darker; a dull black instead of their former shiny dark brown.   
His name? He could remember it, but it felt… wrong. In a disconnected way – as if seeing himself through the eyes of somebody else – he recalled the young, passionate sin’dorei paladin always trying to imitate and please his father in the hope of becoming himself a legendary hero one day, before he had miserably failed in the fight against the Burning Legion. _The same Burning Legion that had destroyed his home world millennia ago._ A sudden, sharp pain flashed through his brain that made him clutch his head in his arms with a groan. The feeling was gone as suddenly as it had come. But where had that last thought come from? It was gone, too.  
“Take your time. I guess you are a little different from the others.” The echoing voice from before now had a surprisingly caring undertone to it.   
He lifted his gaze and eyed the helmeted, impressive figure standing in front of him. “My name”, he searched for a moment and finally rose, “will be Naethir, …my King.” His own voice had an unfamiliar echo to it, too.   
“Hm”, Bolvar mused, “A fitting choice considering the situation I found you in. And I’m afraid you won’t escape further _sorrow_ in the future.”   
“I’m convinced whatever lies ahead wont be comparable to what I experienced after my… death. Thank you for your mercy… and this second chance, my King.”  
“You are welcome. I won’t withhold from you that I had to call in multiple favors to mend the state of your soul and we still couldn’t completely pry you free from the clutches of the Void. Some of it will forever remain a part of you. You now belong to the ren’dorei, called void elves in the common tongue.”   
If it wasn’t simply his resurrection, this probably explained the changes to his body. Naethir nodded to show his comprehension – although he would have to undertake some further research to fully understand, but Bolvar Fordragon surely had more important things to do than to continue chatting with him.   
“Good. If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to address them to Darion or one of the other Ebon Blade.” With that – as expected – the Lich King raised his weapon and opened a Death Gate. “My King”, Naethir said respectfully for a last time and bowed, before entering it.

Honorary Deathlord Naethir waited nervously at the Legerdemain Lounge in Dalaran not far from the Icecrown Citadel, where he had first opened his eyes weeks ago. Obviously nervousness was one of the emotions he could still experience at their fullest – what a relief. A sarcastic, joyless smile crossed his features, but vanished a second later when he heard the flapping of wings verging on the entrance of the inn.

With some efforts he’d been able to finally contact his family with the help of a skilled agent and had asked them for a meeting in the old… or rather _older_ Dalaran, where usually nobody was around anymore to interrupt their strange reunion. And on neutral ground, since they now belonged to different factions.   
That was something Naethir still had to get used to. Not because he had been an enthusiastic member of the Horde in his past life as blood elf, but because he was used to neutral organizations like the Argent Crusade and currently the Knights of the Ebon Blade, but as soon as he now made contact with somebody else than a death knight, factions started to matter – a lot; at least to the others. He wasn’t able to relate to the feeling, and that had nothing to do with his new existence as death knight. He could still remember that the quel’dorei had regularly allied themselves with the Alliance, but for some reason they had joined the Horde as sin’dorei… and now as ren’dorei he was back with the Alliance.   
He mentally rolled his eyes. Why did factions still matter? In the end they usually had to fight together against bigger threats anyways. Like this Old God now. A part of it seemed to come back to Sylvanas’ efforts – for whatever reason – to actively set the two factions against each other over the duration of the past year at last. Maybe now, after her disappearance, an improvement could be approached.

The figure entering the building immediately drew Naethir’s attention and seriously confused him for a moment, since it looked very familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.   
“Saewron?”, he asked disbelievingly.   
The other elf, who had frozen in the doorstep even more surprised with a hand raised to his temple, woke from his stupor upon hearing the name. “Brother?!”   
In the blink of an eye and accompanied by a quiet poof – So he was still a rogue at least! – Saewron crossed the room and embraced him heartily. It seemed his agent hadn’t mentioned some details regarding how he had made contact with the other members of his family. A part of the reason was probably that Naethir hadn’t explicitly asked, and the other part was that death knights were still feared to some degree and his agent had been eager to keep their communication brief.   
Still not completely believing his own eyes, Naethir returned the gesture, accompanied by a short, but noticeable pang of joy and relief. When they finally released each other again, Naethir eyed his little brother once more. Like himself, the younger of the two twins was a reflection of his former self in a tint of blue: his complexion was fairer and his formerly hazel hair was now of a deep navy worn distinctly shorter but still long enough so that some strands fell over his eyes depending on his posture. Also new was the little pet fox following his every step.   
Incredulously, Naethir asked: “How in the world-souls name did it happen that you became a void elf?”   
Saewron laughed softly, obviously still taken by surprise. “And that coming from you! It’s a long story, but surely not longer than yours explaining how you are alive!”   
“I guess we both have a lot to tell each other. But let’s wait for the others. How are your brother and our mother?”   
Saewron wavered, suddenly deadly serious. “I’m… Orthorin is fine as far as I know, but...”, an inexplicable undertone of guilt resonated in his voice, “Our mother is dead. She passed away about a year ago.”   
Sorrow pure as ever clenched Naethir’s heart and must have reflected on his face, because Saewron embraced him once more, whispering a shaky: “I’m really sorry”, in his ear.

After this first exchange they quietly sat down at one of the oval tables in the inviting Lounge, with Tulu – as the fox was called – curling up beneath it, and sharing a bottle of Caraway Burnwine. Although alcohol had no longer any effect on him as a death knight, the sharp liquid chased the unpleasant taste of the news from his tongue.   
In passing he noticed that Saewron first emptied the content of a small vial he produced from one of his belt pouches in one gulp before taking a long drink from the glass in front of him, but Naethir was still too busy processing the things just heard to start inquiring in that regard. Admittedly, some part of himself had already feared the worst for his mother since… well, he’d decided to end his life. He’d known that his death would deal another heavy blow to her health after the earlier loss of Kath’dril, which had already left its imprint on her as observed when he’d stayed with his family for the funeral of his father. He’d still hoped that the company of the twins would be enough to give her the strength to recover once more. It seemed he’d been wrong.

Roughly half an hour later, the older of the twins finally showed up after all – a void elf too, as Saewron by now had already explained. Orthorin looked somewhat more different from his twin brother now: despite sharing the same fair skin color, his hair was of a slightly brighter blue and the transformation had left more perceivable traces on him in the form of a bunch of small tentacles on the top of his head and some larger ones peeping out between the strands of longer hair at the back of his neck.  
The greeting between Naethir and Orthorin unfolded in a more reserved way than with his twin, but the older had always been the less emotional one. Despite their general awkwardness, it only took Naethir a few minutes together with the twins to note the heavy tensions between the two. This was something new, since even though they had never been of one mind as twins often tended to be, they had gotten along well with each other, despite strongly distinct interests. Now they either exchanged sharp jibes – although Saewron was the one clearly more often on the receiving end of their verbal duels – or they ignored each other as far as possible.  
After his initial suspicions, Naethir eventually got to the bottom of the tension between the twins. He’d just concluded his narration of what had happened to him after he’d left Silvermoon in search of Magister Umbric with the confession that he actually hadn’t been able to control the powers of the Void back then, but instead had killed himself to prevent worse, when Orthorin suddenly rose.   
“That’s disappointing. I guess in that case I don’t need to waste my time further with any of you. You will excuse me now, it’s already late.” And with that he simply left.  
Naethir still stared perplexedly after Orthorin when Saewron uttered a deep sigh and spoke for the first time after a considerable while during which he had obviously washed down his comments regarding the manner of his twin with the content of his glass to keep the meeting civil. “Sometimes I’m really tempted to strangle him for a little while. Maybe that would bring him to terms”, he admitted, slightly slurring his speech.   
“What the heck was that about?!”, Naethir wondered but didn’t get an immediate answer. When he turned to his younger brother after a short silence, Saewron was absentmindedly massaging his temple seemingly unaware of the elder’s question.   
“Are you all right?”   
The rogue blinked and muttered an apology, lowering his hand. “How about we go somewhere more… private”, he suggested with a glance to the serving staff, “… and less swaying?”  
Naethir had to grin despite himself. “I’m not sure it will help with the latter – although fresh air will probably do the trick – but I think I know the perfect place.”

Some minutes later they were seated at the top of one of the countless delicate towers across the town equipped with some cozy wicker chairs.   
“That’s much better”, Saewron approved, already noticeably sobering up.   
“So...”, Naethir began inquiring.   
“I’m sorry you had to witness mister-self-control-incarnate at his best”, the younger twin started with another sigh, petting the small fox on his lap, “Since our… transformation, sadly he’s become completely unbearable. He simply can’t accept that not everyone is totally fine with those damn whispers in the back of their mind all the time!” His frustrated outburst was commented with a short – supposedly soothing – whimper by Tulu. “It looks like your… what you just told us put you on equal footing with me… somewhere far below my dear twin and not worthy his oh so precious time.”   
Naethir eyed his brother worriedly. “Do they trouble you severely, the whispers, I mean?”   
The rogue shrugged, “Usually it’s okay and I can ignore them or suppress them with the ren’endal. If that does not work… I do have my methods to make them shut up.”   
“The vial?”, the death knight remembered and the younger elf nodded reluctantly, adding:   
“And Tulu.” Recognizing its name the furry pet wagged its tail happily.   
“And Orthorin doesn’t have any troubles?”   
“That’s at least what he claims. And I’m inclined to believe him. It’s quite possible that his monk meditation helps him a lot… and – granted – he always was the one with better self-discipline. But that’s no reason to treat us in this way.”   
“Indeed”, Naethir agreed thoughtfully. He didn’t remember Orthorin as an arrogant cynic. While the older twin had always been proud of his combat skills and his rational thinking, and obviously – judging by the uniform and its insignia – he had achieved much in a short time within the military, Naethir still hadn’t expected that such a thing would get to the monks head. Was it only his supposed mastery over the whispers of the Void? Based on their looks, he’d guessed Orthorin would be the more afflicted one of the two, but Saewron’s arguments weren’t to be neglected either; maybe the monk had undergone a bigger external transformation, while the rogue suffered more under the internal changes. Still, he would keep a watchful eye on both of them; as far as possible.

“I could pass some of my mixtures on to you by the way, in case you’re interested”, Saewron offered after they had spent some minutes absorbed in thought.   
“Thanks, but I believe I actually won’t need them”, Naethir declined gratefully, “Since I was raised as a death knight, I barely heard any whispers. I’m not sure why. Maybe the Void is afraid of the Lich King. _His_ presence I can feel constantly in my mind – but not in a bad way.”   
And then there was that second presence he still couldn’t quite pin down. He had the strong suspicion that it was connected with the female draenei, who had been a part of the Lich King’s deal to make his resurrection as a death knight possible. Avadel had been her name, and she was also the reason behind his honorary title, as he had been told by Darion Mograine after his first arrival in Acherus weeks ago.   
He still wasn’t convinced if he had any chance to live even partly up to his title as Deathlord and the expectations linked to it. Its conferment upon him had been arranged based on the assumption that he would somehow gain access to at least some of Avadel’s memories, which would give him an edge with his progress as a death knight, but so far this hadn’t happened; he’d had to learn everything from scratch, only benefiting from his combat experience as former paladin. At first after his awakening he’d actually gained some memories or knowledge out of nowhere repeatedly, but each time this had been accompanied by an abrupt, short headache.   
Later that night though, an unknown force had compelled him in a merciless and harsh way to live through some of his own memories, not hesitating even before the most painful ones; an experience that had left him in a gravely desolate state for hours until he’d regained his composure. Maybe – if it had been Avadel – she had realized herself that she had crossed a boundary with her action.   
Since then at least there hadn’t been any noticeable further interactions between them, although he’d tried to reach out to her presence several times. Sometimes he still seemed to suddenly become aware of some foreign knowledge hidden in his mind – even without a headache; but it never was anything actually… useful.   
For the moment he’d given up on further investigations concerning this other soul that was bound to his own; he wasn’t yet able to grasp the consequences to himself, but at least he didn’t feel any negative influence; and so he’d decided to instead focus on his family.

“Lucky you”, Saewron appraised after a while, bringing Naethir back to the here and now, “But I guess you earned that silence the hard way.”   
The death knight raised an eyebrow, “By failing to resist the whispers and killing myself?”   
“Don’t try to play down what you went through”, the rogue chided him softly, “I’m aware of what your new name stands for and I won’t believe for a second you got it by chance… you had some suspicious skips in your story. And I also know that being a death knight is far from a cakewalk.” A surprisingly strong wave of positive emotions washed through Naethir and he didn’t know how to respond at first. “I’m relieved at least we two get along well.”

Although they both had their own obligations and followed different approaches regarding the fight against the Old God N’Zoth, thenceforward Naethir and Saewron met again regularly in Boralus or in one of the other capitals to dwell on their mutual past and experiences, developing a brotherly love that was far greater than in their days as sin’dorei, while Orthorin – as announced – mostly avoided both of them.

Soon the death knight focused his efforts fully onto the so called Horrific Visions – the alternate scenarios of futures ruled by N’Zoth, that could be accessed in a controlled environment from the Chamber of the Heart – and the enhancement of the legendary cloak provided by the Black Prince Wrathion achived there.   
Naethir was determined to expose himself to increasing amounts of madness, to train his own sanity and hence to prevent himself from repeating his past mistakes. Never again would he let himself be that easily tempted and tricked by the whispers of the Void, instead he would do everything in his power to redeem himself and to protect his remaining family.

* * *

**Shadowlands teaser:**

  * If Bolvar loses his powers as Lich King after the destruction of the Helm of Domination by Sylvanas, what will the consequences for Naethir’s whispers-protection be?
  * Will Naethir be able to fully accept and embrace the second chance he was given with Avadel’s memories and his life as a death knight; how will her memories influence his future actions?




End file.
